Babysitting provided for parent-teacher chats

Friday

Oct 26, 2012 at 11:03 AMOct 26, 2012 at 11:19 AM

Luke Smucker

Although classes were not in session, sounds of laughter could still be heard wafting out of the gym at St. Mary Elementary School. Twenty-two student council members entertained more than 30 grade school students and their siblings during the parent teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday. For the third year, parents came to the school and instead of having to find babysitters, student council members offered to watch their children as a service project. “This is my second year on the babysitting service project,” said sixth grade student Mark Corrigan. “I’ve been enjoying coloring with the kids and playing games with them. It’s a lot easier to get to know them than I thought it would be.”Aubrey Gill, an eighth grade student at St. Mary’s and the Student Council president, said when she was in sixth grade, Student Council Adviser Anne Corrigan suggested to council members that babysitting might be a good service project. Corrigan told the students that as a parent of a young child, it was difficult to come to parent teacher conferences sometimes because she always had to find a babysitter. She suggested the student council could provide a valuable service.“When I started this, I didn’t really know how to take care of kids,” said Gill. “Parents would bring in babies and we found out pretty quick how much you had to care for the little kids, but that makes this babysitting service project much easier now.”Student council members are set up in groups of two with each group taking a shift, which lasts an hour during the two conference days. During the busiest times, 4:45 to 6:45 p.m., there are actually three student council members per-shift. As parents drop their little ones off, different stations were setup in the gym with activities like coloring, or the card game Uno. There was also a twister mat set up on the floor and the movie Toy Story was playing on a TV in the center of the stations. Gill said a babysitting committee thinks up their games and activities each year. The committee comes together prior to the service project to discuss what members liked to do when they were kids. Gill said this year’s committee decided that young children love to color, watch movies and play cards. The committee also decided to bring the game Twister to get the children’s bodies moving.“I think they like being here,” said Gill. “We have a girl who was just here and her mom told her it was time to go and she was crying because she didn’t want to leave. I want to say we do a really good job taking care of them and I think they have a fun time.”One thing that Gill has learned during this service project, is how much younger students look up to the student council members. For Gill, the interaction pushes her to be a better leader. “Their eyes are always on us and maybe some people don’t notice it, but they want to know what we think about them,” said Gill. “So that gives us opportunities to be a good leaders. Usually, they are pretty good about just listening to us because they want our opinion and want us to like them. If they do start to get rowdy, we just ask them to settle down and the usually listen to us right away.”Gill said parents really seem to appreciate the effort that the student council provides and some even try to donate money to the council members for their hard work. Gill said when something like this happens, they explain that they are providing the baby sitting as a service to the parents at St. Mary’s School and that the reward for them is the chance to hang out with students they don’t get to see every day. Because she is in eighth grade, Gill said this will be her last year with the project, but she hopes it continues because she thinks it is really worthwhile. “As a council, this really helps us improve on our leadership and helps us as a council to come together get to know the people we work with,” said Gill. “I think it taught everyone in the council a little bit about babysitting. I really thought it was a smart idea to help other people and I know when I was little, my parents needed a babysitter, so us providing this service helps a lot.”